Supernova class at Paignton Sailing Club's POSH Regatta

Paignton Open Single Handed (POSH) 2023 © PSC

Paignton Open Single Handed (POSH) 2023 © Christopher Hawley

The weekend of 20 and 21 May saw nine Supernovas make the trip down south for a bit of sneaky pre-Nationals practice at the fantastic Paignton sailing club.

After a very early start for some on the Saturday morning, it was fantastic to be greeted by wall to wall blue skies and a fresh breeze when we arrived at "the Green". Some last minute tuning and banter of "glad I'm not in a 300 in those waves" and "K1s are a bit of a bandit aren't they?" was a good way to get the nine of us revved up and ready to go.

PRO race officer Ian Bullock (our Nationals race officer this year) delivered his usual no nonsense briefing and we were all clear - first of the menagerie starts, with the aeros and K1s. The Phantoms, Hadrons and the 300s were 4 mins behind, so that kept it simple on handicap - they catch you, they beat you.

As sails were going up, Chris and Jonny were debating whether the white crests that were just appearing in the bay were a good thing or a bad thing! Either way, it was smiles on faces as we sailed off towards the start line.

Race 1 was interesting, Steve and Chris decided to start the favoured committee boat end, second line after the army of Aeros that had parked on the line - then a quick tack off for clear air. The other Supernovas seemed to favour the other end of the line, but regardless it was tight at the first mark. Chris and Gav got away, but it was all so close with all of the other boats around. Gav finished on top as expected. A nice breeze with hiking.

Race 2 Chris learnt a lesson the hard way - Aeros are better at stopping on the start line than we are - and narrowly avoided a collision. Gav and the crew were off clear from the pin and managed a great first beat in the dying breeze. James had a cracking race as did Steve. Gav on top once again.

Race 3, well maybe the less said about this the better. Dying breeze, wallowing in the bottom of the boat wishing we were ashore for the free curry and a few beers. Interestingly the only race which Gav didn't win - still room for improvement before the nationals Gav!

Saturday evening was a really good social catching up with the rest of the Supernova crew and welcoming newcomer Kevin.

Sunday was a carbon copy - a great wind to start - shockingly light by the end.

We had some great racing within the Supernovas and with the other fleets - a brilliant overall result of fifth for Gav doing the Supernova proud in this strong handicap fleet. Dave was going very well indeed when the wind was up in the first race of each day, Alex was at the sharp end of fleet all the time. Everyone found their own battle on the water.

The Supernovas will be back at Paignton in a few weeks for the Nationals (currently ~90 entrants and just 1 week to go until entries close). Thanks for Paignton for another great event.

Supernova extracted results:

1st Gavin Young
2nd Chris Hawley
3rd Steve Hawley

Supernova results within POSH: